Friday, October 19, 2007
Com125 Assignment 8: Thanks to photo web applications
An web application that I often use or find useful is photobucket. What your basically allowed to do on photobucket is share pictures and videos with other users and non-users. Even if your not a user you can still search for videos and pictures. You can also send the images to your phone as well as save them into your own album. I do not have a photobucket account, but I still go on and search for pictures and videos. Often I would search for funny pictures to post on peoples myspace wall. What's also cool about photobucket is your able to embed pictures and videos on your websites, but the thing is people can delete their account or album you got the picture or video from which will erase it from your the contents you placed it on. Photobucket has a simple home page design. The home page is blue and white. At the top right corner it has little tabs where you can enter your username, password, or either join. The on the top left it has a photobucket picture and under that it has 3 tabs which says home, join now, or find stuff. Under those tabs it informs you that u can share pictures and videos, where you can share them (myspace, livejournal, blogger, facebook, email, etc). Under that if has a search bar where you can specifically search for pictures or videos. All you have to do is type in what your looking for and press enter. Lastly under that the home page has a search related pictures and videos people have looked up and those pictures and video change everytime you go onto or refresh the home page. The way the home page is setup makes it easier for users to join or search for things their looking for. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't believe theirs any social aspects to this site except the fact that you can share your images and videos with people. The reason I find this site interesting is the fact that you can search for and share images and and videos easily.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Com125 Assignment 7: Open to the Communtiy
What is a community?
A community is a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. Most people are involved in some type of community whether they know it or like it. According to the article, "Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?"by Fernback and Thompson, Cooley (1983) says that all normal humans have a natural affinity for community. (Fernback and Thompson, 1995) Theres no way you can avoid it unless your a hermit and I doubt thats the case. Fernback and Thompson also states, "The structural process that is associated with community is communication. Without communication there can be no action to organize social relations." (Fernback and Thompson, 1995) People who are active in communities gain social ties and relationships with the members they interact with. There are two types of communities people associate their selves with. People are involved in online as well as offline communities. There are some who prefer the online community better. As for me I prefer both.
Reasons behind me preferring to belong to both communities is because online you can communicate with people you probably will never see. You can be online to communicate with friends, family members, people you have just met, people you want to meet, etc. Online community is good, but it can also be a bad thing. There might be people that are frauds and are not who they say they are. You may be thinking their one thing, but can be totally different. Other than that you can catch up with friends, view how they are doing, how they are interacting and communicating with others. Its a excellent way to keep in touch with the ones you care about. What I admire about offline communities is you can physically get involved in it. It allows you to go out and actually meet new people, hand out with friends and family, create better relationships with people, and generate stronger ties. Also with an online communtiy you can't participate in community activities where you are able to communicate with a wide range of people. For instance, when I go to Alumni to play basketball I meet and make new friends all the time in which I would most likely only have communication with them at the gym. Being with a community you can't really do things like being physically active with the people you communicate with at the current moment. I think the online and the offline community both have its ups and downs.
I feel the internet helps improve someones relationship. For instance, I am a facebook user and if I didn't use it I probably wouldn't keep in touch with my freshmen roommate in college at all or others they i used to be close to, but am now relocated in different areas from them. Using IM is another way for people to develop stronger ties with people because you can communicate with people faster than on facebook or myspace. I feel the internet helps social ties more than they hurt them. With the internet you also have the option of adding who who want to communicate with so that you can keep internet predators away. According to the article, "Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community into being on social network sites" by Danah Boyd, it says, "“Are you my friend? Yes or no?” This question, while fundamentally odd, is a key component of social network sites." This statement is very true. These networks give you the option of accepting who you want to be your friend. If your accepting people who know and would like to know you can create a better relationship with the person because your not as afraid of sharing personal information with them.
A community is a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. Most people are involved in some type of community whether they know it or like it. According to the article, "Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?"by Fernback and Thompson, Cooley (1983) says that all normal humans have a natural affinity for community. (Fernback and Thompson, 1995) Theres no way you can avoid it unless your a hermit and I doubt thats the case. Fernback and Thompson also states, "The structural process that is associated with community is communication. Without communication there can be no action to organize social relations." (Fernback and Thompson, 1995) People who are active in communities gain social ties and relationships with the members they interact with. There are two types of communities people associate their selves with. People are involved in online as well as offline communities. There are some who prefer the online community better. As for me I prefer both.
Reasons behind me preferring to belong to both communities is because online you can communicate with people you probably will never see. You can be online to communicate with friends, family members, people you have just met, people you want to meet, etc. Online community is good, but it can also be a bad thing. There might be people that are frauds and are not who they say they are. You may be thinking their one thing, but can be totally different. Other than that you can catch up with friends, view how they are doing, how they are interacting and communicating with others. Its a excellent way to keep in touch with the ones you care about. What I admire about offline communities is you can physically get involved in it. It allows you to go out and actually meet new people, hand out with friends and family, create better relationships with people, and generate stronger ties. Also with an online communtiy you can't participate in community activities where you are able to communicate with a wide range of people. For instance, when I go to Alumni to play basketball I meet and make new friends all the time in which I would most likely only have communication with them at the gym. Being with a community you can't really do things like being physically active with the people you communicate with at the current moment. I think the online and the offline community both have its ups and downs.
I feel the internet helps improve someones relationship. For instance, I am a facebook user and if I didn't use it I probably wouldn't keep in touch with my freshmen roommate in college at all or others they i used to be close to, but am now relocated in different areas from them. Using IM is another way for people to develop stronger ties with people because you can communicate with people faster than on facebook or myspace. I feel the internet helps social ties more than they hurt them. With the internet you also have the option of adding who who want to communicate with so that you can keep internet predators away. According to the article, "Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community into being on social network sites" by Danah Boyd, it says, "“Are you my friend? Yes or no?” This question, while fundamentally odd, is a key component of social network sites." This statement is very true. These networks give you the option of accepting who you want to be your friend. If your accepting people who know and would like to know you can create a better relationship with the person because your not as afraid of sharing personal information with them.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Com125 Assignment 6: Hey is that really U?
Everyone has their own unique identity. Having your own identity is important. Your identity is what separates you from every other individual in the world. People often like to keep things about themselves kept a secret. Nobody wants everyone in their business or to even know stuff about them. And then theres lot of people who don't care if some information about them is known by others. Imagine someone you don't know or haven't met at all and they know everything about you. How would that make you feel? Would it creep you out, make you scared, happy, or would you even care? Thats a big issue you have to face when you decide to put personal stuff about yourself online.
Majority of the people in the world have their own online identity. An online identity is a social identity that network users establish in online communities. There are many online communities out there. It may range from e-mails, instant messenger, myspace, facebook, blogs, shopping online, playing video games online, etc. Network users may go by their real name or they may create one establish an identity out of the user name they created. People can be defined or put into certain categories depending on what online community they associate with. When you come across people with e-mail addresses that end in .edu basically means that their in college or at least was at one point in their life. Another way a person can create a social identity is by groups that they join on certain networks. For instance, on facebook you can join groups. Depending on which groups you join can give online users an idea of what type of stuff your interested in.
What do I identify with?
One of the many online communities I belong to is facebook. Facebook used to just be accessible just to people who were in college. Now facebook is open to the public. Anyone can create a facebook account now. I wasn't introduced to facebook until my older sister informed me about it and the things your able to do on it. I was informed that you can get in contact with old friends , relatives, or even meet new people on this network. You can also share photos, message people, find out peoples interest and status. I have my own personal profile which helps people identify me from others. For the most part I have my real information up there. I only put information up there that I don't mind if users to know about me. Their are privacy settings you can put up so that only people who are friends with you can view your profile, but I don't really care because I have nothing of importance about me on my profile. While i'm on facebook I can interact with old high school friends, friends that I grew up with, new friends that I've met in college, and family members. I can even interact with people I've never met before. I like the fact that you can be informed on events that are going on at your school as well as other schools.
I also have social identity on myspace, but I stop going on their as much because there has been to much identity theft and viruses going around on that online community. There are a lot of weirdos on myspace. My myspace account password was some how stolen and someone had access to my account. The person who had access to my account was going around sending random messages to people on my friends list and they deleted links on my profile page. Now when people visit my myspace profile they have no way to link back to other stuff because some jerk deleted my links. Thats why I don't really mess with myspace anymore. One of my friend even told me someone told her pictures off of her profile and made an profile using her picture. I don't know what would possess people to do this. They must think were COOL, just kidding. If you don't want your information being stolen I advice you to not create a profile on these website so unknown users can view them. If you do create a profile limit what information you give out about yourself or you can just make your profile private so only people you know can view it.
Majority of the people in the world have their own online identity. An online identity is a social identity that network users establish in online communities. There are many online communities out there. It may range from e-mails, instant messenger, myspace, facebook, blogs, shopping online, playing video games online, etc. Network users may go by their real name or they may create one establish an identity out of the user name they created. People can be defined or put into certain categories depending on what online community they associate with. When you come across people with e-mail addresses that end in .edu basically means that their in college or at least was at one point in their life. Another way a person can create a social identity is by groups that they join on certain networks. For instance, on facebook you can join groups. Depending on which groups you join can give online users an idea of what type of stuff your interested in.
What do I identify with?
One of the many online communities I belong to is facebook. Facebook used to just be accessible just to people who were in college. Now facebook is open to the public. Anyone can create a facebook account now. I wasn't introduced to facebook until my older sister informed me about it and the things your able to do on it. I was informed that you can get in contact with old friends , relatives, or even meet new people on this network. You can also share photos, message people, find out peoples interest and status. I have my own personal profile which helps people identify me from others. For the most part I have my real information up there. I only put information up there that I don't mind if users to know about me. Their are privacy settings you can put up so that only people who are friends with you can view your profile, but I don't really care because I have nothing of importance about me on my profile. While i'm on facebook I can interact with old high school friends, friends that I grew up with, new friends that I've met in college, and family members. I can even interact with people I've never met before. I like the fact that you can be informed on events that are going on at your school as well as other schools.
I also have social identity on myspace, but I stop going on their as much because there has been to much identity theft and viruses going around on that online community. There are a lot of weirdos on myspace. My myspace account password was some how stolen and someone had access to my account. The person who had access to my account was going around sending random messages to people on my friends list and they deleted links on my profile page. Now when people visit my myspace profile they have no way to link back to other stuff because some jerk deleted my links. Thats why I don't really mess with myspace anymore. One of my friend even told me someone told her pictures off of her profile and made an profile using her picture. I don't know what would possess people to do this. They must think were COOL, just kidding. If you don't want your information being stolen I advice you to not create a profile on these website so unknown users can view them. If you do create a profile limit what information you give out about yourself or you can just make your profile private so only people you know can view it.
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